Heading East
by AlexAmericus
Summary: Cody and Tim Beckman are brothers, and Maris is their cousin. They were at their friend David's house when the plague started, a plague that turns people into shambling, hungry undead. They know not of what has happened to their friends and families, nor do they know what awaits them as they head east. Friends and alliances will be made, while others may be lost forever.


**Disclaimer: The Left 4 Dead franchise belongs to Valve.**

I woke with a start as my head hit the passenger side window with a thud. Rubbing the throbbing ball of pain that was now forming on my head, I looked around bleary-eyed, trying to take in my surroundings and figure out where I am. Well, I'm in a car; thanks for that David. Opening my eyes a little bit more and twitching my head this way and that, I found that my vision was blurred, I couldn't see. I reached up to touch my face and that's when the crazy driver next to me finally said something.

"You started to snore, Cody's got your glasses."

Cody's got my glasses, huh? Well crap, I don't trust my brother with my glasses even if my life depended on it. Twisting in my seat I look to the back of David's pickup. I couldn't see very well, so I wouldn't be able to tell you if it was my cousin and older brother sleeping soundly in the backseat, or just two very colorful amoebas. Huffing at my own bad eyesight, I turn back around and stare out the window, not that I could see anything anyway.

Thanks to my eyes, I had no idea where we were, what we were near, or anything about the light brown, fuzzy mass of land that David was driving wildly across. In fact, I couldn't see barely three feet in front of me. From the coloring of the fuzz though, I _think _were in a desert, I'm not sure though.

"Where are we David?" I asked.

"Somewhere in Nebraska," Well, I was way off, "where specifically? Don't ask. Nothing but damn cornfields out here."

"Better than what I thought. Hey, can you help me get my glasses?"

"Just wake them up Tim, they know you're blind." David replied, "Besides, I'm driving about ninety miles an hour, I'm not going to be of much help unless I want to kill us all."

"You know how they are." I shot back.

"Would you rather meet a sleep-deprived Cody, or your maker?" David's tone of voice dropped to a deadly seriousness.

I gulped. "Maybe I will wake him up."

"Atta boy."

Turning back around, I reached out and poked the fuzzy amoeba that I thought to be Cody. The amoeba groaned and tried to swat my hand away. I grabbed at what I found out was his knee, and shook him until he finally woke up.

"Wazz matta?" Cody slurred in his half asleep stupor.

"Get me my glasses." I couldn't help but kind of smile as my brother's antics. He was never really the morning kind of person.

"Wattaya say?" Cody demanded with almost the same force as I had. Dang, even half asleep he still demands manners from me. I didn't know he could do that.

"Please."

Cody stretched out and yawned wide enough to swallow a Goliath Tarantula, as he was stretching, he reached up to the clothing hook on his side. After feeling around on the roof of the car for a few seconds, he finally found the hook and took down my glasses. So that's where they put them when I fall asleep. I'll have to remember that trick.

Cody handed me my glasses with a curt, "Here."

I snatched my glasses back the best I could and put them back on my face. The light brown fuzzy mass of land that I thought to be a desert quickly became dried up corn and wheat fields. And the weird gray stripe in the middle turned to be a unkempt, bumpy road. Looking around with the newfound gift of sight, I didn't realize Cody was trying to get my attention until he kicked my seat, successfully waking up the other amoeba-human next to him.

"Wattaya say?" Cody repeated. Not realizing he had woken up our cousin, who was as cuddly as a wolverine when she was woken up outside her own terms.

"Thank you, oh and you might want to put that ninja training to good use Bruce Lee."

"Why?" Cody asked. He really was oblivious wasn't he?

"You just woke up the sleeping tiger." David proclaimed from the driver's seat, looking in the rearview mirror at Cody's impeding doom. "If I were you, I'd start apologizing before she started to strangle me."

Too late David, the irate woman already started to try and choke out my brother. I turned back around and let those two fight it out in the backseat, occasionally hearing a swear word fly and cries of slight pain as one of them landed a weak punch or kick on the other. David glanced back up in the rearview mirror every so often only to just return his eyes to the road shaking his head at my family's childishness.

David kept driving along the abandoned road at breakneck speeds, occasionally yelling at the two idiots in the backseat whenever they got too rowdy, threatening to crash the car if they didn't settle down. I don't know why David tried, those threats haven't worked on them since Cody was ten, when every time he heard that threat it was only to be taken lightly as a joke. At that point in our lives our mama just started to throw stuff at us as a form of discipline. Before you cry 'child abuse' however, note that it was never really heavy stuff, and the projectile was always followed with the classic scolding. The objects rarely made contact with their targets anyway, and if anything they helped improve Cody's and my reflexes. I think the heaviest thing I had thrown at me was a landline phone. Mama normally threw whatever small object was in her hand at the time, which mostly turned out to be a wooden spoon or a whisk. Don't even ask me why Cody and I always seemed to fight around our mama while she was cooking.

Mama, I wonder where she is? It's been a few weeks since this stupid pandemic broke out of a government science lab. The three of us, my big brother, cousin and I, had been at David's house when it first started, everyone else had been back down his mile-long driveway into town. Mama had raised us on her own, ever since Dad snapped and tried to kill her and practically threw Cody across the room. My dad had never been the sanest (or most patient...or most reasonable) man in the world and he was taking medication for it, but let's just say that he 'forgot' to take it this fateful day and decided that drinking 'til he couldn't see straight was a good idea. I only know what Cody told me, he was about five when it happened, and I was only a year old. Speaking of my brother, he never really forgave Dad for what happened, heck he hasn't even called him 'dad' since he was twelve.

I wonder what happened to all our friends, too? Most had been in the main part of town when the crap hit the fan. I know that most of them are smart enough to stay inside, but what about David's pen-pal Mercutio? He was visiting from Italy and was stuck in a hotel room. And Dakota can't sit still when he's cooped up in a house. Uncle Mike and Uncle Todd would have also been outside, or did they get back to the station in time? We didn't even have time to check on them before we had to pile in David's car with a few provisions and guns and get out of dodge. The whole concept of most of our family and friends being dead or shambling around as the undead scared me. A few times when I was driving I wanted to turn around and head back to Colorado. I know that David would kick the crap out of me if I did though.

"How much gas do we have?" my cousin's voice derailed my train of thought.

"We're good for another hundred miles." David replied glaring at the fuel gage, "But we're going to stop as the first backwater hillbilly town we see to get some more supplies."

"You think there'll be a gun store?" Cody asked.

David scoffed, "This is the Midwest, there's a gun store in every town."

I looked at the backseat to my cousin, she was staring out the window just as I had been. I could kind of tell that she was thinking about the same stuff that I was. Her dad, my Uncle Mike, was the chief of police in the tiny town we lived in. She was really close to him, more so than a lot of people would think. The three of us came from a very small tight knit family, everyone was close to one another, and my cousins were really more like other siblings that lived down the street.

"Ah, shit." I heard David swear.

"What's wrong?" my cousin asked.

I turned back around and saw what David was looking at. He eased the truck to a stop and said some more colorful language under his breath. There was a roadblock in the middle of the unkempt road. There were three big black SUVs spaced out along the road, the gaps small enough that no car could get through. On the sides of the road were tents, picnic benches, and boxes upon boxes of who-knows-what stacked precariously on top of one another. Walking around were several men and some women wearing dark colors, with bandanas over their mouths and noses like the train robbers you would see in old western films and shows. Everyone was carrying a gun, some even had multiple guns strapped onto them. They all stared at the big gray pickup truck that had rolled into their territory, some even aimed their guns at the truck.

"Bandits." David growled.

We all knew about the bandits, we've had some close calls with several gangs of them. Some gangs were just two-bit numbskulls that didn't know what they were doing, trying to look intimidating in any way that they can. Most of the two-bit thugs didn't have a giant truck like David's though, so we just plowed right through their camp. These guys, on the other hand, were organized. Some members of these bandit groups even had gang experience, which David said makes them extra dangerous. These bandits in front of us knew what they were doing. A few of them had their guns raised at us, and we all knew we were already in a bad position. They wouldn't hesitate to shoot at us if they thought we were going to do anything funny. One of the men, probably their leader, stepped onto the road and began to make his way slowly toward the truck.

"What do we do?" my cousin whispered, you could hear the panic rising in her voice.

"Don't move." David ordered, "Don't speak unless you're spoken to. If they ask for anything, give it to them. We're not here for a fight." David knew what to do in a situation like this. How he knew we didn't even dare to ask. Cody attributed to the fact that David could trace his family back to the Wild West, where he was a descendant of a sheriff and no doubt an outlaw or two. His grandpa had even trained David himself how to shoot like a gunslinger. "I have my revolver on me if anything goes sideways."

The fact that David had his own gun on him made me feel a little bit better, but I don't know how a six-shooter would stand against numerous assault rifles and machine guns.

The lead bandit finally stopped in front of David's side window. The guy had a gaunt, grimy face, and he reminded me of the outlaws you see in the movies. His demeanor and appearance really made me feel as if I had jumped through a time-warp. The bandit knocked on David's window, he rolled the window down.

"Roll down yer other windows and turn yer car off." The bandit ordered. David rolled down my, Cody's and my cousin's windows, and turned his car off. The sound of the engine noise dying made my heart sink into the bottom of my stomach. The bandit whistled to the others standing by with their guns aimed, four guys lowered their guns and sauntered over to the truck and a few more people that had been hiding behind brush and the SUVs stepped forward to take their places.

It was a couple minutes of deadly silence before the bandit spoke again, "What's yer name, driver?"

"David."

"Nice ta meet'cha, David." the bandit sneered, "I'm Billy." Billy looked across David to stare hard at me, I kept my gaze focused on a vulture circling overhead hoping that he wouldn't speak directly to me. "What's yer name, kid?" Crap.

"Tim." I replied, praying that he wouldn't say anything else to me and turn his focus back to David.

"How old are ya Timmy?" Damn it.

"Sixteen."

"Little young ta be ou' here, ain'cha?"

I didn't reply, I was too focused on the beefy man standing just outside my door. Thankfully, Billy laughed once at my nervousness and moved onto Cody. "What abou' ya? In the back there."

"I'm Cody."

"Ya'll related er sumthin'?"

"Tim is my little brother." I could hear a slight growl in Cody's voice. I really hoped that Billy didn't notice it. "David's my friend." Billy smirked and nodded and sidestepped over to my cousin's window.

"What abou' this pretty thing 'ere?" Billy grinned. I felt my blood boil, and I could see David's nostrils flaring when I cast a side glance toward him. I knew Cody wasn't feeling to positive about the matter either. "She yer girlfriend er sumthin' Cody?"

"No, she's mine and Tim's cousin." Cody's growl was a little more noticeable now, but if he noticed it, Billy passed it off.

"She yer girlfriend, Dave?"

"No," David's voice quavered in anger, "She's my friend."

"Shame, shame," Billy sneered, "And what's yer name?" he said to my cousin,

"Maris."

"That there's a nice name." Billy smirked, "Ya got anyone Maris, a boyfriend?"

"No. I never had one." I bit the inside of my lip discreetly. Maris didn't exactly tell the truth there, and David always warned us to tell the truth to save our skins.

"That's a shame." Billy shook his head in mock disappointment, "Pretty face like yers shouldn' go ta waste." It tortured me wondering why he was spending so much time at her window. I wanted to know what he was doing, but if I moved the beefy guy next to me would have his hand on my throat in a second, and it would jeopardize our safety, or worse, we'd be dead.

Thankfully Billy moved back to David's window, "Where ya folks headed?"

"East." David replied.

"Ain't we all?" Billy laughed.

"May my friends and I pass?" David was losing his patience.

"Ya wanna pass us? Ya gotta pay the toll." Billy informed.

"We'll pay it." David said in a hard voice. "What do you want?"

"Ya got any food?" Billy asked, "Mah guys are starvin', ain'cha Butch?" Billy turned to the man at Maris's window, Butch nodded.

"It's in the bed." At this Billy waved a few more guys over to the bed. The bandits unloaded all the food we had. "Anything else?" David asked.

"Yeah," Billy looked to Maris, I felt my organs fall in a heap at my feet, "how's abou' yer li'l lady friend 'ere stay with us fer a while?"

"Absolutely not." Cody answered before David could open his mouth. Billy's face darkened and his face contorted in anger.

"It ain't polite ta speak when ya haven' been spoken ta, Cody." Billy sneered. I heard the henchman on Cody's side cock his gun, I all but started hyperventilating. Billy repeated his question to David.

"I can't do that to her Billy, I'm sorry."

"Why not? It ain' like we gonna hurt her none." Billy's wicked grin was back on his face.

"I'm sorry Billy, I can't leave a friend behind." David's word was as final as it could get, "Are you sure there isn't anything else you would want beside her?"

"I dunno Dave." Billy sighed, "Yer friend is quite tha looker. Hell, I'd let cha pass whenever the hell ya wanted if ya gave 'er ta me."

"We won't be coming back this way." David replied shortly, "What else do you want?" Billy's face darkened back to its murderous glare once again.

"Well, if ya won't give 'er up, whaddaya say ta a little competition? Jus' you and me Dave. If ya win, ya keep 'er and I let cha pass. If I win, ya hand 'er over, and I take yer guns too." Billy sneered, he seemed pretty confident that he would win.

"Name it." David snarled. He seemed pretty confident in himself too.

"A stand off." Billy answered. "You and me. One bullet each. Whoever hits their mark wins."

"You're on." David challenged. Billy opened the car door for David and he stalked out of the car. David turned back to us and said, "Stay in the car, I won't be long, I promise."

Billy laughed harder, a more cruel, gravelly laugh cut through the sky, "Ain' chu noble Dave? C'mon then, over tha hill. Best not scare the kid now, eh? Ya got a gun on ya?"

"My Papi's revolver." David replied removing his own gun from its holster and unloading the other five bullets and jamming them in his jeans pocket.

Billy whistled in admiration, "I migh' need ta ask fer that gun too." Billy took out his own revolver and clapped his hand on David's shoulder as if he were greeting an old friend. David and Billy walked off of the road and started up the adjacent hill. It seemed like forever until they reached the top and out of sight. The three of us still in the car sat in silence, hoping and praying that David's heritage and over a decade of training with his experienced grandpa would be enough for him to win. I started to shake in cold fear as the agonizing minutes passed. Five minutes passed since David walked over the hill. Ten minutes. I kept waiting for the gunshots to cut through this deadly silence, but none came. What if Billy, like so many other experienced bandits of his kind, just killed him with his bare hands out in the middle of nowhere, leaving us with no protection and at his mercy?

Butch, the big man next to Maris, laughed a deep, low laugh and said, "Your friend ain't coming back, he's already dead."

That's when two gunshots sounded, one right after the other. Followed by a bloodcurdling yell.


End file.
